Officer

A Berkeley policeman in civilian clothes was critically injured today when a man he was trying to arrest stabbed him four times at the Alameda County Courthouse, Berkeley police reported. Police spokesman Marc Garcia said Larry Lindenau, head of the Berkeley department's sex crimes unit, was at the courthouse at 9 a.m. looking for James Arthur Lea, 43, of Berkeley, who was at the courthouse on an unrelated case.

Jared Lee Loughner, accused in the deadly Tucson shootings, is believed to have taken target practice in the Arizona desert and was pulled over by a peace officer for running a red light before making his way to the Safeway supermarket where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was holding a meeting with her constituents, law enforcement officials said Wednesday. In those early morning hours, Loughner was stopped and let go with a warning by an Arizona Game and Fish officer for creeping through a red light, six miles from the market where six people were killed and 13 injured, including Giffords, officials said.

A Navy paymaster was beaten to death aboard the destroyer John Hancock and an estimated $120,000 was taken from the ship's safe, a Navy spokesman said Tuesday. Chief Petty Officer Art Riccio said the officer, whose name was not immediately released, was found dead after he failed to report to muster. A search of the disbursement office found the safe open and cash and an undetermined number of blank checks missing, Riccio said.

An off-duty Los Angeles police traffic officer was arrested Monday morning in the north Valley and charged with drunk driving and speeding, police Cmdr. William Booth said Wednesday. George Ramos, 42, who has been a policeman for 13 years, was seen driving at excessive speeds at 1 a.m. Monday and was arrested, Booth said. The Police Department will conduct an administrative review and evaluate whether the officer should be suspended, Booth said.

A recent Street Smart article about Officer David Gray ("Scourge of the Speed Demon, He's Heard it all Before," May 29) was meant to be neighborly and folksy, but I found it to be very disturbing. It's frightening to see the press, which is supposed to hold public officials responsible, cuddle up to an officer who proudly admits to breaking the law. The article says, "You're going to get the ticket--no ifs, ands or slick crocodile buts about it." However that does not apply to Mr. Gray's family or friends, whom he will not ticket for speeding.

An off-duty Los Angeles sheriff's deputy shot and injured a man who allegedly was trying to burglarize the lawman's home Tuesday morning, police said. Anaheim resident Brooks Johnson Beck, 22, was arrested on suspicion of residential burglary and treated at UCI Medical Center in Orange, said Buena Park Police Sgt. Ken Coovert. The burglar climbed through the back window of the officer's one-story home on San Francisco Drive, Coovert said.

Black activist Steve Biko was acting "stubborn and too big for his boots" by defying police interrogators who killed him 20 years ago, an ex-officer said. The "state order" in the 1970s was for blacks to obey whites, Harold Snyman told the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Snyman and the four officers he commanded are seeking amnesty from the commission--set up to investigate apartheid-era political crimes--for the beating death of Biko.

Re "Suit in Fatal Police Shooting Is Settled," Aug. 15: My heart goes out to the family of Antonio Saldivar. I can't even imagine the pain of losing a child. However, I do think about it often. My daughter has been a sworn police officer protecting the lives of Californians for more than eight years. Officers on patrol can see more trouble in a 10-hour shift than most of us see in a lifetime. Every time they stop a car, they know the occupant might be armed and ready to shoot. Every time an officer responds to a call, it might be an ambush.

For a Los Angeles Police Department disciplinary panel, the evidence was persuasive: Rookie officer Christopher Jordan Dorner lied when he accused his training officer of kicking a mentally ill man during an arrest. But when a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge examined the case a year later in 2010 as part of an appeal filed by Dorner, he seemed less convinced. Judge David P. Yaffe said he was "uncertain whether the training officer kicked the suspect or not" but nevertheless upheld the department's decision to fire Dorner, according to court records reviewed by The Times.